


Kidnapped!

by Roselightfairy



Series: Malfoy Manor [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Claustrophobia, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Trauma, Torture (Cruciatus Curse)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: On the way home for Christmas her sixth year, Luna is "dragged off the train" and taken to Malfoy Manor, where she is locked for several months with no comfort but an elderly and traumatized wandmaker and her own memories of her friends at school. Luna's side of the story inDeathly Hallows,from being captured to being rescued. Mild Neville/Luna.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story from several years ago, also posted on ff.net, but I thought it was worth archiving it here as well. (Some of my stuff from over there still makes me cringe, but this isn't too terrible compared to other things, and I think the world could benefit from a little more Luna perspective)

She’s sitting with Ginny and Neville, talking and planning in a compartment miraculously free of Wrackspurts – and that’s good, because now there’s no interference with the thought process and the ideas are flowing thick and fast – and even though what’s going on is horrible, she can’t help feeling a tiny selfish warmth in her chest, because for the first time in her life she is important, special, _wanted._   And it’s not worth the pain and the terror and the crushed hopes of everyone else, and she wouldn’t sacrifice them for her own selfish desires, but she’d gladly bear all their combined burdens if she could just keep this feeling.

(Because at the moment, her deepest fear is that she’s only a substitute, only important because Harry, Ron, and Hermione aren’t here, and that as soon as this war is over she’ll go back to being ridiculed, unimportant Loony Lovegood.  But when she’s actually with them these fears don’t surface.  Because somehow it just feels good to be with them.  Warm.  Right.)

But then, without warning, the train lurches to a sudden jerking halt, and it’s only because Neville catches her at the last minute that Ginny isn’t thrown to the floor.  Luna is standing; she absorbs the motion in the balls of her feet, stays upright.  But dread is creeping through her like ice, because the train has only stopped before its destination one time in all her years at Hogwarts –

And then the door to their compartment flies open and Padma Patil trips inside, landing on her hands and knees and scrambling to her feet, panting.  “They’re questioning all the Ravenclaws,” she gasps, “they’re looking for you!”  She is staring directly at Luna, who is shocked but not surprised – hadn’t she already predicted something of the sort?

Ginny and Neville cry out in shock and horror, but somehow, Luna is filled with an odd sense of calm.  She draws her wand and seals the compartment door with a quick “ _Colloportus_ ,” and then turns to the other three.

“That won’t stop them,” she says, still suffused with that strange calm detachment.  “It’ll only slow them down.  We can’t stop them.  They’ll get what they came for.”

“No they won’t!” cries Ginny, leaping to her feet and pulling out her own wand.  But Luna knows they will.  They are Dark wizards with no conscience, and the full might of the Ministry on their side.  The only thing Ginny will  achieve with this is getting hurt herself, and she can’t do that – can’t, because she’s more of a leader than Luna ever has been, or ever will be, and because Hogwarts needs her and Neville more than it does Luna.  Ginny doesn’t seem to see it, though.  Luna stares into the burning brown eyes which refuse to see the truth – she tries to convey it to Ginny in that one long look.

“You can’t fight them,” she says softly, keeping her eyes locked on brown ones.  “Please.  For me,” and she sees the dancing flames in Ginny’s eyes eventually fade into resignation.

“You mean you’re just going to give up?”  Neville’s voice is astounded and . . . does she hear disappointment in it?  But does he truly believe that she’ll give up this fight?  She might not be violent, hot-tempered, but she is Luna Lovegood, and she will never give up on anything to which she’s committed herself.

But she focuses on the sound of his voice, on the look in his eyes.  After this she might never see him again, never hear his voice again, and the blow hits her like a sword to the heart.  She places her hand gently on his, because it’s all she can do.

“No,” she says, “I’m going to fight.”  She has nothing to lose – or rather, the only thing she does have is about to be ripped from her anyway.  “But you can’t.  You can’t let them hurt you.  You can’t let them take you.”

“Like hell I can’t!” he shouts, and his hand rips out from under hers and flies to his wand, his eyes blazing.

He has become someone new this year, Neville has.  She’s seen it in his eyes, and she can sense that he is not finished changing.  Sometimes she misses the clumsy round-faced boy who could never find his toad.  But she has a new respect for the leader standing before her.  She can’t let him be taken before he reaches his potential.  But at the same time she wants to weep, because they love her, they do, this is real, but they’re about to be stolen from her.

“Neville,” she says gently, “Hogwarts needs you.”

“It needs you, too,” he argues, anger subsiding and his voice growing softer.  “I need you.”

They’ve never spoken about the moment they shared on the Hogwarts grounds last year, after the funeral.  He’s never mentioned it to her, and she always simply assumed that it was an accident on his part, emotions running too high in the heat of the moment and a need for comfort.  And if she wanted to discuss it with him, there never seemed to be a chance, the current situation always taking over any conversation the two had – and there were few where Ginny was not present.  But now, startled to see tears sparkling in his eyes, she realizes that he must have meant it, too.

She can hear footsteps – her time is running out.  She feels rather than sees Ginny and Padma, unwilling spectators, freeze as she leans down and kisses him.  For the second time – and maybe the last – in her life.

Pulling away, she says her goodbyes to the other two – she kisses Ginny’s cheek and squeezes Padma’s hand.  Though the older girl has always made fun of her, calling her “Loony” and laughing with the others, this year it has stopped, and she feels a connection to the girl who ran the length of the train to warn her.  The girl who gave her time to say her goodbyes.

And then she breaks away from the group and stands as tall as she can just inside the compartment, wand at the ready.

The hooded figures are right outside now.  One tries the door, and frowns in confusion that it won’t open.  Luna even manages a smile, a thrill of pride at her spellwork.

But one of the Death Eaters has lost his patience.  Through the glass she can hear his yell of “ _Expulso!_ ”

There’s a crash as first the glass, then the door itself, blows into millions of pieces, and something collides hard with the side of her head.  She’s dazed for a moment at the beauty of the stars flickering before her eyes, and, though deafened by the explosion, can faintly hear Padma scream behind her.  But her ears are ringing, a pretty bell sound, and she’s distracted again trying to place what it reminds her of.

The next thing she knows, she’s lying on her back on the compartment floor, in a mess of broken glass and splinters.  Trickles of blood are running down her face, and she feels like she could paint with it.  Red, the color of passion and flame.  But somehow, miraculously, her wand is still in her hand.

A figure is stooped over her, and as his face swims into focus before her eyes, she’s seized by terror, but she holds it in, somehow pulling back her emotions and forcing her face to remain blank.  She imagines an opaque haze clouding her eyes, hiding her fear.

The man reaches down and grabs her shoulders, hauling her roughly to her feet.  She sways a bit, still woozy, but she notices that the Wrackspurts have found the compartment – that must be why it’s so difficult to think now.  She wants to warn Ginny and Neville, tell them to move to another compartment, but the man shakes her so hard that her teeth rattle together, almost snapping shut on her tongue.

“You Lovegood’s daughter?” snarls the man, glaring at her.

All she can manage to say is, “There are nargles in your hair.”

There are, too.  She can barely see beyond his hood, but from the looks of it there’s a whole infestation, clinging to the wiry bristles of his hair.  Even in his eyebrows, which she’s never seen before.

The other one laughs, but not a happy sound – a cruel jeer.  “Definitely Lovegood’s girl,” he nods.  “Let’s get her out of here.”

Then she remembers what she’s supposed to be doing – and how they have overlooked her wand she doesn’t know – but she points it behind the man holding her at the other man’s chest and whispers, “ _Petrificus Totalus._ ”

He can’t even let out a cry before he topples with a crunch into the pile of already-broken glass, but his partner has seen what she did, of course, and he yanks her wand out of her hand and flings it onto the floor.

Neville seems to sense what will happen next as well as Luna, and he makes a dive for it, but the man kicks him out of the way and brings his foot down hard on the wand.  Luna doesn’t only hear the sickening splintering sound, she can also feel it piercing her, and can feel the missing piece there – a piece almost as vital as the one she lost the night her mother died, seven years ago.

She can feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, but she will not go quietly – she kicks and screams, struggling and flailing, and giving the man so much trouble that he can’t even lift the curse she put on his friend.  Out of the corner of his eye, she can see tears running very quietly down Neville’s cheeks, but he keeps his unspoken promise to her and does not fight.  Ginny is struggling, too, but Padma is holding her back.

But, no matter how much she fights, the Death Eater is stronger than she is and he pins her to the ground, smiling – a horrible, evil leer – and directs his wand at her chest.

“ _Crucio!_ ”

She’s felt it before, she knows this pain, but it does not make it any easier, because no amount of this pain allows you to build up a tolerance.  Every time it hits, it hits anew, and she cannot stop herself from screaming, cannot hold back the shrieks.

When he finally, finally lifts his wand she forces her eyes to focus, schools her face back into the dreamy expression, and searches for them with her peripheral vision.  They are all crying now, but none of them are moving because they know she’s right, they know she’ll be taken anyway, and there’s no point losing everyone.

 _Thank you, I love you,_ she tries to tell them with her eyes, but finally she succumbs to the heaviness in her limbs and the pain in her pounding head.  The last thing she can see is a strange picture which doesn’t belong in this compartment, perhaps it is painted on the inside of her eyes.  The triangular symbol of which her father is so proud, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.  And then, suddenly, the rearing head of a snake, tearing it in two.

And then she sinks gratefully into the blackness.


	2. Chapter 2

Her head hurts.  That’s the first thing she realizes.

Her eyes are still closed – actually, it feels like they’re glued shut, stuck to her face, and she doesn’t have the strength to try to wrench them open – and she’s still half-floating in darkness with almost no sense of anything, but she can feel her head, and it’s _pounding._

She wants to groan, but she can’t get the sound out.

Memory starts coming back to her – Ginny and Neville, the fight on the train, her wand.  There’s a new stab of pain, but that’s not coming from her head – it’s internal.  Like her heart is breaking.

(And yes, she knows what that feels like.)

She starts to recognize some sense of touch.  There are arms under her – she’s being carried somewhere, by someone.  Death Eaters, she would assume.  Or something of the sort, in any case.

The arms are not being gentle; one of them shifts slightly, elbow digging into her spine, and she would wince if she had the ability to move.  But as said ability is, at the moment, lacking, she settles for remaining limp.

She doesn’t think she’d be able to walk, anyway, and if she moves they’ll just know she’s starting to regain consciousness.

Her sense of hearing is coming back as well.  She can hear voices drifting in and out of her haze, gruff, male voices . . . “the girl” . . . “right here, I think . . .”

She’s shifted again, even more painfully this time, but she forces herself, again, to remain motionless.  There’s an odd noise, and the body of the person holding her shifts as though he’s lifting a hand to the side – she pictures some sort of barrier, and of course he would be showing his Mark . . .

There’s an odd rustling noise, and she knows it’s the exact sound that peacock feathers make when their tails are fanned out.  Using these details – her knowledge of magical creatures is helpful – she is able to form a picture of her surroundings.

And then she’s moving again, faster and more jerkily than before, and then there’s a shaft of light which seems to pierce her eyelids, and before she knows it she’s been dumped unceremoniously on the ground, her already-sore head hitting the floor hard.  But she doesn’t cry out.  She wants to listen.  Maybe she can learn something interesting.

“You’re late, Macnair.”  The voice is like steel, sharp and slippery at the same time, and Luna’s eyes almost fly open, because she _knows_ this voice – she’s heard it before – that’s it.  Images fill her mind, memories, flashes – the veil and the whispering voices, the strange darkness, the ghostly Seers, speaking their fated words, and Harry, Harry and Sirius Black and – her heart freezes – Bellatrix Lestrange.

Her throat is locked up with what feels like ice as the voice continues, with a hint of amusement this time.  “Surely a little girl didn’t give you so much trouble!  Oh, poor Dolohov, did she knock you out?”

“Shut up,” growls the Death Eater holding her – he’s the one she managed to hit with the Body-Bind Curse.  Obviously, she had some sort of an effect then, but she almost feels sorry for him now, because obviously he’s being ridiculed, and because who wouldn’t feel sorry for anyone in comparison to Bellatrix Lestrange?

But her head is still throbbing, and for the other – Macnair – she can’t muster up any sympathy.

“Well,” says Macnair now, “it doesn’t matter if we’re late or not.  We have the girl, and do you want her or not?”

His voice holds a hint of a threat, as though he would just take her away – but it’s empty, she can hear the bluff in his voice, and she is sure Bellatrix can, too.  She can almost see the cruel face curving up into a deadly smile.

“Put her in the cellar,” says the steely voice, and she can even hear the smile she pictured, “with the other prisoner.”

Other prisoner?  Who else is here?  A tiny, faint hope leaps in her heart – _Daddy?_ – but she knows that that’s impossible.  They wouldn’t capture her if they already had him.

She prays with all her heart – please, don’t hurt Daddy, please, let him be all right.

A foot makes impact with her side, so hard that her eyes are startled open and she’s staring into the pitiless black ones of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Oh,” she croons, “the little loon is awake, then?”  Her laugh is a cackle, high and insane, and Luna wonders why everyone in the school believes that _she_ is insane.  Because while she may be eccentric, may wander where others don’t, she has never made a sound like this in her entire life.

The black eyes are sparkling with mirth, and Luna realizes that she’s _happy_ – Bellatrix Lestrange is _happy_ – that Luna has woken up.  Happy that she has another victim.

“Do you like games, little loon?” the awful voice is asking.  “Do you want to play?”

She doesn’t want to, she will never want to, never, but she won’t say anything.  She schools her face into the dreamy expression again, doesn’t allow a sound to escape.  She might die today, but if she does, she will do it with dignity, and she will not let Bellatrix Lestrange see that she is afraid.

Her voice is croaky, but she forces it out: “There’s a Wrackspurt on your ceiling.”  An absolute lie, because everyone knows that Wrackspurts are invisible, but she knows there’s one in this room; she can’t think straight, and at least she won’t give in.

She hears the cruel cackle again, and the wand jabs into her chest.

“Oh, this one does like to play.”  Bellatrix’s voice is smoother than butter.  “Well then, let’s continue the game.”

She knows what’s coming; she locks her teeth together, determined not to scream, as the voice shrieks, “ _Crucio!_ ”


	3. Chapter 3

But Bellatrix doesn’t play for long.

And the pain wasn’t as bad as it should have been, either – even with her throat raw from screaming (because she did scream, she doesn’t know how anyone manages not to when hit by the Cruciatus Curse, she couldn’t help it) and her body still wracked with tremors, she notices this.  They don’t want to hurt her too badly – they don’t want to kill her.  Yet, at least.  They are saving her for something, and with the way they addressed her on the train – Lovegood’s daughter – she thinks she knows what.

As she’s hauled roughly to her feet and half-dragged away – her legs are trembling too much to take her weight – she tries to collect her scattered thoughts.  Macnair is holding her this time, hands gripping her shoulders so hard it hurts, practically ripping her robes, and instead of focusing on where he is taking her, she tries to make sense of the _feeling_ of his hands.  They’re clenched too tightly, that she already knew, but not as though he’s purposefully trying to cause her pain.  He’s not even thinking about her anymore; she knows that much.  More like he’s . . . afraid of something.

“What are you afraid of?” she asks him curiously, as calmly as she can, not expecting an answer.

She gets one, though – of a sort.  He shakes her again, even harder than he did on the train, and her muscles are so limp that she feels like a rag doll as her head snaps around on her neck.  “I’m – not – afraid – of – anything,” he grunts out, voice rattling a little as he continues to shake her.  There’s definitely a note of fear in his voice.

She doesn’t say it but she knows that only cowards refuse to admit their fear.  That’s one of the reasons she’s always admired Neville.

When his hands finally still and her teeth stop attempting to halve her tongue, she waits, because she can do nothing else.  Waits to see where he will take her.

He yanks open a door; the cellar, she thinks, and she stares down into nothing but darkness.  She doesn’t fear the dark, though – never has.  The dark provides a new way of seeing, and the different perspective causes new ideas to spring into being.

“Hey, you!” calls Macnair roughly, and he receives an answer.  A tiny noise, a whimper that seems to be a cross between the whine of an injured dog and the creaking of an old door, and now Luna is scared, really scared – because that noise could only be made by someone in great pain.

“Company!” announces the Death Eater, dropping Luna in a limp heap in the doorway and giving her a shove with his foot.  She tumbles down stairs, but only a few – she can’t be hurt any more than a few new bruises.  She looks up at Macnair at the top, sees the fear in his face – and then his face twists, is no longer his anymore.  Instead it is the face of a creature not quite human – skin pulled so taut that his face is shaped like that of a snake.  And Luna knows who it is.  But she looks into the red eyes and sees the same thing as in Macnair’s – fear.  And she thinks that no matter how close to immortal he might be, Lord Voldemort is still, somehow, tied to the earth.  Because no one truly invincible could have a look such as that in his eyes.

And then she blinks, and the face is gone.  And soon, so is Macnair’s, as he slams the door shut and the shaft of light from the house vanishes.  She is left in complete darkness.

She hears the quiet, pained moan again, and crawls, on her hands and knees, around the floor, looking for the source of the noise.  Finally her hand encounters a head – a face – and though she has never touched it, she can put a name to this face, by feeling the wrinkles, the shape of the eyes –

“Mr. Ollivander?” she gasps.

And it is him.  His eyes are sunken, pits in his skeletal face.  His skin hangs slackly from his bones, and she can feel every one of his ribs when she presses down on his chest.  But she can hear him breathing, and feel a steady – if faint – heartbeat, and she knows that he’s alive.

“Luna Lovegood, I believe?” he whispers.  She can barely hear his voice, but it doesn’t matter – it’s a voice, and he recognizes hers, and he’s sane, and it’s a relief.  Because no matter how long they keep her in here, she’ll have company at least.

“Ten inches,” he says, his voice still frail but a little stronger with this, with something that he understands, “beech, with a core of unicorn hair, quite flexible.”

He says the words as though they’re a dream, his comfort, something for him to cling to, and she wonders if they are.  Wonders if that’s his way of surviving alone, is by repeating every single detail of every single wand he’s ever sold, the same way she survives by retreating into herself and calling back every memory she has of her mother.  And she thinks that, if it is, she would understand completely.

But still, his words send a thrill of sadness through her, because that wand, the wand she loved, the wand which seemed to fit her completely, is now gone, and she will never get it back.  “Not anymore,” she says softly, blinking back the tears welling in her eyes.  “They snapped it.”

He sighs; the sound is like snowfall.  Quiet, dry, full of softness and sadness.  When he speaks, his voice, too, is full of pain – but not the physical kind.

“Why do they destroy these creations?” he asks, barely audible.  “So many wands destroyed, so many people deprived.  So much magic, simply wasted.”

“I think they want to take away our beauty,” she replies.  She’s thought about this.  “They don’t think that anyone deserves it except for them.”

“But they don’t know what beauty is,” he says, soft agony in his voice.

Impulsively she places her hand gently atop his bone-thin one.  “But we do,” she says.  “And we can make it ourselves.”


	4. Chapter 4

After awhile, he sleeps.

Luna can’t see him, so she doesn’t know for sure, but she can hear the change in his breathing as it becomes easier, less labored, as the pain leaves him enough to let him rest.  And when his hand, still clenched around hers, loosens its grip, she knows that she won’t disturb him if she gently sets it down.

It’s hard to know if it’s nighttime or not – the prison is completely dark.  Only a tiny, dim shaft of light seeps under the door leading to the outside – and that isn’t even enough to let her know if the inhabitants of the house are still awake.  The light just outside has been on for the whole time she’s been in here, and she knows that at some point, there must have been night.  If she was taken from the train at roughly two o’clock in the afternoon, then it should have been dark about three hours later.  And that much time, at least, has passed.

But her schedule shouldn’t matter in here.  Her headache has only gotten worse, and she needs to sleep.  So she curls up on the floor beside Ollivander, pretending she is a cat – they can sleep anywhere and in any position.  And in a sense, it works.  The floor is still hard, but she doesn’t feel it quite as much, doesn’t notice the pain where it digs into her back.  She closes her eyes.

She sleeps fitfully, though, plagued with snippets of dreams.  None of them are long enough for her to make sense of the plot, only flashing quickly past her mind’s eye, but it’s enough.

She sees Ron Weasley’s face, streaked with rain and tears, eyes open but empty.  She feels that she can see through them to his soul, but before she gets the chance his face disappears, to be replaced by another image.  Harry and Hermione, kneeling in a tent, poring over an old book, written in runes.  She wonders why they aren’t with Ron, tries to decipher the runes, but then they, too, are whisked away.

Ginny, lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling . . . Professor Snape, his face buried in his hands, sitting at the Headmaster’s desk . . . and then, the same symbol again, the sign of the Deathly Hallows.

Like the others, it is only a picture – it doesn’t move, or do anything, but unlike the others, it does not disappear after only a few seconds.  If anything, it grows stronger, hanging before her eyes; every bold stroke growing thicker and thicker.  It feels as though it has been seared into her mind.

And when she finally wakes up, for a few moments all she can see is that strange, eye-shaped symbol, as though imprinted on the insides of her eyelids.  But then she hears Mr. Ollivander’s soft stirring, remembers where she is, and the symbol fades away into the darkness.

He’s waking up.  She reaches over to feel where he is, and when her hands brush his shoulder she can feel him trembling.  He’s trying to sit up, but not having much success.  Gently, she leans over and eases him into a sitting position.

“Good morning,” she says, as brightly as she can.  It’s not a good morning under any circumstances, she knows that, but there’s no point in bringing his spirits even further down.  Besides, in a sense the morning is good – they’re not dead yet.

It’s disappointing to have that be the qualification for a good morning, but she’ll take what she can get.

Her headache is gone, as well, which is also good news.  But she’s starting to feel the rest of her body.  Since she can’t see it, she has to press down on her skin to check for bruises, but once her examination is finished she imagines that she must be black and blue all over.

There are five marks on each shoulder, which, she imagines, exactly match up to Macnair’s fingers where he held onto her.  The skin on her elbows and knees is scraped off from her fall down the stairs.  Her face is covered with scratches from the broken glass in the compartment on the train, and her hair crusty with dried blood.

But the worst of it she doesn’t encounter until she tries to get up.  Her muscles are cramped from sleeping on the floor, and she attempts to stand and stretch them – and then she feels the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse.

With a gasp of pain she drops to the ground, feeling as though every single muscle in her body has wound itself into a tiny, tight coil, and when she tries to stretch it out her whole body explodes with pain, as though she’s ripping her muscles open.  She tries not to, but she can’t resist letting out a tiny, quiet moan.

Is this what Mr. Ollivander has had to deal with for more than a year?

“Mr. Ollivander?” she asks quietly.

“Yes?” he replies, his voice still so frail that she can barely hear it, but now it takes on a whole new meaning.  If she hurts this much after only one torture session, and not even as hard as it could have been, then what must he be feeling now?

“How often have they tortured you?”

He seems surprised by the bluntness of her question, but Luna has never been one to beat around the bush.  She can tell that he’s thinking hard.

“One loses count after awhile,” he replies finally, and her heart goes out to him.  What has he ever done to deserve such pain?

“Mr. Ollivander?” she says again, even more quietly.

“Yes?” he responds, in the same way he did earlier.

“Do you like music?”

He seems surprised.  Clearly that is not what he expected to hear, but . . .

“Yes,” he sighs softly, “I do.”

She sings.  An old lullaby her mother used to sing to her, when she was young and curious and refused to go to sleep.  The lullaby she would always play in her head whenever anyone called her Loony.

The lullaby is in Mermish, but in Luna’s opinion that makes it even more beautiful.  There is no word-for-word translation into English, and rough translations drain the magic from it, but it is a song used to put children to bed.  A song about closing your eyes to the world for a time, and not to be afraid, because it will still be there when you wake up.  Only three lines, sung in the haunting language of the merfolk, over and over again.  Luna has loved it ever since she was first old enough to remember it, and now she uses it to remember her mother.

As she sings, she realizes with a sharp pang of sadness that this may not be true anymore.  How can anyone close their eyes to the world now, when there really is a chance that it won’t be here anymore when they wake up?

But if this cellar is to be her eyelids, she will use the time as best she can.  It may be sad, it may be depressing, but she knows that it is not as bad as it could be.  She is not alone.

When she finishes singing, she hears Mr. Ollivander let out a sigh of contentment.  She remembers what Bellatrix called her earlier, a loon.  That may be true, she thinks, but at least loons have beautiful voices.


	5. Chapter 5

At some point – she doesn’t know how much time has passed since she was thrown in here – the door bangs open and light spills down the stairs, cutting a path across the room.  Though half-blinded by the sudden brightness, Luna looks to the top of the stairs, sudden panic shooting through her heart.  Are they coming to torture her? To kill her? Or Mr. Ollivander?

 A tall, slim figure stands at the top of the stairs, holding something large and bulky.  Though the light is at his back, making it hard to see him, she recognizes him – his posture, the way he holds the tray.

Draco Malfoy.  She shouldn’t be surprised; she’s known since last year that he was one of them, but she’s never blamed him for it.  She knows it was only because he was afraid.  She knows he is a coward of the worst kind, who never admits that he is afraid, but his fear was obvious, and, unbeknownst to any, she has seen him break down before.  Maybe for that reason, she never imagined that she would be imprisoned in his house.

Because she knows now that that’s where she is.  _Malfoy Manor._

“Draco?” she breathes.

He almost tumbles down the steps.  “ _Lovegood?_ ”

She didn’t expect him to recognize her voice, because they’ve almost never spoken in the past.  She actually didn’t even think he knew her name – most people don’t.  And with as surprised as he sounds, they must not have told him that she’s in here.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

He hefts the tray in his hands.  “To bring you food.”

But that’s not what she meant.  “No,” she says.  “I mean, why are you here at all?”

He stiffens, so she knows he knows what she meant.  He walks slowly down the steps, carrying the tray and setting it down in front of her.  When their eyes lock, she can see that he knows it’s no use to pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

His eyes are steel-gray like his father’s, but they don’t have the same hardness in them.  She can read his fear, panic, and despair as easily as words from a book.  When he speaks, his voice is a whisper.  “What other choice do I have?”

His eyes are too bright; even with the light at his back she can see that he’s struggling to blink back tears.  Then behind him, a voice – Luna shudders at the cruelty in it; _Bellatrix_ – calls, “What’s taking you long, Draco?”  It’s sweet on top, but Luna can hear the danger in it; the razored edge, and, against her will, she trembles.  It’s as though a defense mechanism has built up in her body at the sound of the voice, and she tenses, preparing for the pain.  She almost can’t blame Draco for flinching, turning around, and scurrying out of the cellar.

_Almost._

But then she hears Mr. Ollivander’s weak shuffling behind her, remembers the frail skeleton he has become after months of being holed up in here – in Draco’s house – and he never tried to do anything about it.

She tries not to – she doesn’t want to be unjust – but she does blame him.  Maybe he could have done something.  Even if he was afraid, there’s no excuse for what he has let this poor old man become.

She turns to the tray, and finds Mr. Ollivander already there, poking at the contents.

There’s not much.  Two cups of water – Luna didn’t even realize how dry her mouth was, but she does now – two stale hunks of bread, and two bowls of something that feels like cold broth.

Not much, but it’s food, and it feels as though it’s been hours since she last ate.  Mr. Ollivander looks more used to it than she is, taking his food with a resigned sigh and eating it slowly, but she wants to eat everything in four bites.

She doesn’t know how, but she forces herself to slow down, reasoning that she might not get any more.  It’s hard, though – with the first sip of water, her parched throat cries out for more, and she wants to gulp the whole thing down right now.

“Eat slowly,” warns Mr. Ollivander, as though he has read her thoughts.  “They don’t come regularly.”

In his voice, she can hear the same resigned note, and a flood of emotions swells up inside her.  Pity, anger, doubt, fear, sadness, and shame.

Shame at what has become of human beings, and the world.  Shame at what her species has brought upon this poor man – and upon itself.  Shame at the fact that her own classmate – a person she’s gone to school with for six years – is a cause of this, through inaction if not directly.  And shame at herself – for not being able to help him.

But, the haunted way his eyes looked when she asked him what he was doing . . .

Maybe she got through to him.  Or maybe she can.  Maybe there’s hope for him, yet.

When she’s finished eating, she curls up and closes her eyes.  She needs to think.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, she decides that it’s Christmas.

“Mr. Ollivander.”

“Yes, my dear?”  His voice is becoming a little stronger.  It could be that they haven’t tortured him since before she came, or maybe just that he has someone to talk to.

“I think it’s Christmas.”

There’s a startled pause before he replies, and then his voice is hesitant.  “Why . . . do you think that it’s Christmas?”

“I just do.”  She shrugs.  “They took me sometime a few days before Christmas, and there’s no way of knowing when it really is.  And it would be a shame to miss it, don’t you think?”

She knows what he’s thinking – that this really isn’t a time for celebration – but she refuses to let it simply go by.  Perhaps it will lift their spirits, as well?

She feels a stab of pain go through her chest.  If she were home with Daddy right now, she knows exactly what they would be doing.  Decorating their Christmas tree – always a Noble fir, because that was her mother’s favorite kind – with Dirigible plums and all their old ornaments that Luna had made herself as a child, hanging mistletoe from the ceiling, laughing at all the memories that everything brings.  Even with only the two of them, the house would be filled with love and light and joy and laughter.

But why can’t she bring that here, as well?

Mr. Ollivander has been quiet this whole time.  But then, finally, he speaks.

“Yes,” he says.  “I think Christmas would be lovely.”

* * *

 

So they celebrate.

There’s not much they can do in here.  They can’t make any special food or give presents, but they sing all the Christmas carols they know.  It’s not easy – they’re both lost, in pain, and no matter how hard they try, they can’t completely forget that they’re locked in a dark cellar with very occasional intervals of light and stale food to break the monotony of the darkness – but Luna is determined to make it work.

She ignores the twinge in her heart when she thinks of her father all alone in their house, staring at the tree – she hopes he got one, and decorated it, even though she isn’t there.  She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to send as much Christmas cheer as she can muster to him.  She pictures the tree, lit up and covered with all its strange, beautiful ornaments, and she pictures herself there, dancing around it with her father, and she sings a little louder.

When they’ve finished with “God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs,” the door bangs open and light floods in.  Instead of throwing her hands over her eyes like she did yesterday, Luna pretends that the light is the star of Christmas, and that the shadowy figure in the doorway is an angel.

“What is going on here?” yells the figure, but she knows that it’s bravado and not anger that raises his voice.  She has only pity for Draco, really, especially after she’s seen the kind of family he’s with.  As small and sad as her Christmas is, at least she has Mr. Ollivander here with her.  She wonders if Draco will have any love at all this year.

“We’re having Christmas,” she says matter-of-factly.  Her eyes are adjusting to the light, and she can see Draco’s face more clearly now – it’s full of shock and – is that envy?

“How did you - ?” he starts to ask, but then he breaks off and bites his lip.  “Never mind.  Just keep it down, or someone else will come in and make you shut up!”

The bravado is leaving his voice, and she can tell that her guess was right – it must be Christmas today. And there is no singing, no cries of joy and love, coming from upstairs.  Just an empty, joyless hole.

“Would you like to sing with us?” she asks.  She can hear Mr. Ollivander gasp, and she takes his hand and squeezes it, trying to convey, _Don’t worry, I’m still sane_.  She can’t explain herself, really – she just thinks that everyone deserves some joy on Christmas, and that Draco is no exception.

The color has drained from his face.  Obviously, he wasn’t expecting an invitation like this from them – but who would?  But she isn’t kidding.  She hopes he can read the honesty in her face.  And for a moment, he looks tempted.

“I” – he wavers, teeth clamping down on his lip again, but then he shakes his head as though he’s a dog, trying to free it from water.  “No,” he says, and she can hear the quaver in his voice.  “I’ve got more important things to do.”

She’s honestly disappointed – she thought for a moment that he would.  “Okay,” she says reluctantly.  “But if you want to come down with us at all, we would love to have you as a guest.”

She doesn’t know where these words are coming from – or why she’s offering him to be a guest in his own house.  She just knows that they feel right.

“N-no,” he says again, sounding even less confident this time.  He turns on his heel without another word, walks out of the cellar and the door clicks shut behind him, light draining from the room.

Luna turns back to Mr. Ollivander, and they return to singing.  A little softer, because they don’t need to be tortured on Christmas, but they don’t stop.  Because the words to the familiar and beautiful Christmas songs are like a warm blanket of safety and love, keeping them safe.

Draco comes to bring them their food a little while later, and this time he doesn’t say a word.  But when they examine the food on their trays, they find that along with the normal stale bread they have each received one Christmas cookie, covered in frosting.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day, though, they torture Mr. Ollivander.

She’s woken by the bright light flooding the cellar, and the sounds of a struggle.  Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she focuses on the shadowy figures entering the room – there are only two of them, and he’s so weak that one of them could have sufficed.  But there are two, and he stands absolutely no chance – she’s frozen in shock as they grab him under the arms and haul him up the stairs.  He struggles, but it’s doing no good, and soon enough, he slumps down in their grip.  Luna stares.  It happens so fast that all she can do is watch open-mouthed.

She comes back to herself as they leave the cellar and push the door closed; she hurls herself at it with a scream but it’s too late, and the door slams shut before she can reach the stairs.  In the sudden darkness she trips over a step and falls hard, scraping her chin on the lip of the next stair up, but it doesn’t matter; her pain is nothing.

Because she doesn’t know what’s going to happen to Mr. Ollivander – but she has a pretty good guess, and a scrape is nothing, _nothing_ compared to the Cruciatus Curse.

The screams begin to echo from upstairs – harsh, inhuman, born of the most intense pain imaginable – and she feels them ripping through her, as though they’re coming from her own lungs.  As though she’s the one feeling the pain.  As though she’s the one being cursed.

She’d almost rather have it be that way than be stuck down here, helpless, listening to the sound of Mr. Ollivander’s agony.

Almost unconsciously, she curls into a ball on the floor, pressing her head hard into her chest, trying to block out the sounds.  She doesn’t succeed, she can still hear them – squeezing her eyes shut, her shoulders against her ears, she can only brace herself for the next onslaught.

She doesn’t even notice she’s sobbing until the screams pause temporarily and she relaxes slightly from her clenched position, and then she realizes that she’s shaking so hard her teeth are chattering, realizes that tears are streaming down her cheeks, mingling with the blood on her chin.  Realizes that she, Luna Lovegood, always calm, never affected by anything (oh, she knows how they see her at school) is crying so hard that she cannot focus on anything.

She doesn’t know where she is anymore, doesn’t know why she’s there, doesn’t know anymore who exactly was screaming from upstairs – all she knows is that her whole body is vibrating, that her lungs are shattering, that her mouth tastes like copper and bile, and that there is a very important reason that she cannot remove her hands from her ears.

She lets out an odd, strangled, shuddering moan, not unlike the sound she first heard Mr. Ollivander make when she was thrown in here.  But she only has to listen to it – he has to live it.

And then the screaming starts again and she buries her head back into her chest and tries to shut out the sounds.

But they stop quickly this time, and then she hears the worst thing that she has ever heard in her life.  Worse than Bellatrix’s voice, worse than Ollivander’s screams – worse even than her mother’s cries in her last moment of life.  This is worse than all of it.

A high, cold, cruel laugh.

Ice fills her veins.  She knows, instinctively, to whom this voice belongs.

And Lord Voldemort speaks this time.  His voice is hard and cold, and it feels like her ears are ripping into shreds just hearing it.  She should be listening, should be keeping her head, should be trying to gather information – but she can’t.  She has been strong for too long.  She is no Harry Potter.

She feels like she’s failing Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and Ginny and Neville too, for that matter, but she can’t listen to his voice, can’t listen to Mr. Ollivander’s torment.  She can’t.

So she puts her hands over her ears and screams, too.

Her throat is raw, there’s no talking or screaming left in her, and her tears have run dry when the sounds finally stop.  There’s one last high, cruel laugh, and then footsteps, and then the door is open once again and Mr. Ollivander’s limp form is thrown down the stairs.

She’s shivering now, but she manages to hold back the sobs; she crawls over to the old man and rests a hand gently on his face.  She can feel trickles of blood running along his hairline, new wrinkles etched deeply into his skin, a crease of pain between his eyes.  She presses her finger into it, smoothing it out.

He lets out a sound, as though he’s trying to moan but hasn’t enough voice even for that.  A wheezy, raspy breath, full of so much pain that tears spring to her eyes again.  She bites the inside of her cheek to hold them back, so hard that her mouth floods with metallic blood, but she doesn’t make a sound until she’s under control.

“Mr. Ollivander,” she whispers, “what was my mother’s wand?”

He sighs, then, as though something has been lifted from his chest, and though his voice is dazed with pain the words spill out as though he has been waiting the whole time for her to ask them.  “Pine,” and his voice is barely a whisper but grows steadily stronger, “pine and phoenix feather.”  He pauses.  “An unusual combination,” and she wants to weep with relief, because not only is he talking, he is not a robot, he can add in his own opinions.  He is not too far gone.  He is still here, with her.  “Thirteen inches.  Whippy.”

“And my father’s?” she presses.  He begins to speak, and she listens.  She will not let him slip away.  She will not let him become like Frank and Alice Longbottom.  She may not be able to fight for real, but she will fight however she can.  She will not let them win anyone else like they won Neville’s parents.  Never again.

She will start here.  She will start now.

So she curls up beside him, dries her tears, and listens.


	8. Chapter 8

That’s how she starts to learn.

Because it happens often.  She can’t say exactly how often, because the only measurement of days in here is how often someone comes to bring them food.  And Mr. Ollivander was right – that’s irregular.  At first she was hungry, starving, her stomach feeling like a tiny ball bouncing hard against the sides of an empty pit, and it hurt so much that she wanted to just curl in on herself and cry.  (A few times she did, feeling selfish and guilty the whole time at how strong Mr. Ollivander somehow managed to be)  But now, after a few days, she’s become used to the hollow feeling; it doesn’t hurt anymore.  It just feels . . . normal.

She only feels really hungry right after eating, when her body remembers that she’s not getting enough food.  Sometimes when the food comes, she feels so nauseated at the thought that she doesn’t want to eat.  Only by thinking of her father and how he will need her after this is all over does she force herself to eat.

She refuses to let go of hope.  It’s the only thing she has in here, between the darkness and the screaming and the hunger and the pain.  She cannot allow herself to believe that her father is dead, cannot allow herself to believe that Lord Voldemort will win.  He _won’t._   This will end.  She clings desperately to this tiny thread, this tiny shaft of light, because if she lets it go she will slip into the darkness – and that one can’t be pierced by the periodic opening of a door.

And her hope lies in the fact that she _isn’t alone._   She doesn’t know how Mr. Ollivander managed to survive in here alone for so long without going insane, but she does know that she will do everything in her power to keep him here.  So every time he’s tortured, as soon as they throw him back into the cellar, she runs to him.  She strokes his thin hair, feeling sometimes as though she’s taking care of a child, and asks him questions.

First, they run through the wands of all of Luna’s school friends.  Then her relatives.  Then famous people to whom he has also sold wands.  She learns about Lord Voldemort’s wand, and Harry’s.  She learns about the Reverse Spell Effect, and the effects of the twin cores.  She learns about Voldemort’s confusion, the strange power of Harry’s wand, and that he is searching for the Elder Wand.  (At this she cringes, because if Lord Voldemort got his hands on the Deathly Hallows, the effects could be disastrous.  She prays he doesn’t know about them) But at this point, Mr. Ollivander shuts down, because it reminds him of his torture and he can’t relive the horrors.

She steers him back to safe topics, asks him about the wand cores and woods.  She learns about wandlore, about the strange combinations and the strong ones, about why certain wands are suited to certain people.  When he talks about this, he falls into a rhythm; his face softens and his voice grows stronger, as though he is repeating a dream.  And she admires this man, admires him for his memory, and his courage, and his ability to judge human character.  _The wand chooses the wizard_ , he repeats over and over, in a soft singsong voice, and she smoothes his hair back and agrees.

And for all her eccentricity, she is still a Ravenclaw, so she absorbs the knowledge.  Her own mind expands, builds new pathways for wands and woods and cores and lengths, unicorn hair and phoenix feather and dragon heartstring whispering softly in her ear as she closes her eyes.  It’s not only for his sake that she asks – it’s for hers, too.  She wants to learn.  She wants to understand.

She goes to sleep with _acacia apple ash_ whirling in her head, and she dreams of wands.  And the next day, when the screaming has stopped, she takes his hand and asks some more.

And when his voice grows hoarse and he can’t talk anymore, she takes over.  She tells him about Wrackspurts and nargles and the magic of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.  She talks about the conspiracies within the Ministry – even before the Death Eaters took over.  She tells him everything that she knows, everything that others laugh at her for knowing.  And she knows, somehow, that even if he weren’t being tortured every day, he still wouldn’t laugh.

Because he’s not like that.  He respects the unknown, instead of fearing it like some people.  Every one of his creations is unique, and he understands that everyone is unique.  He is a kindred spirit.

He’s a wandmaker – he has connections to other people that they don’t even understand.  That wand – that extension of an arm – he made that.  It has more than just its own personality, and that of its master.  Every wand also contains a bit of its maker’s spirit.  Mr. Ollivander is a part of every witch, every wizard, for whom he has ever made a wand.  He is with Harry, Ron, and Hermione – and through him, she wishes them luck on their quest.  He is with Voldemort, even – and though she hates him and fears him she also pities him, because he has somehow managed to block off that connection.  He somehow ignores the intense wisdom of this old man who he tortures every day.  He has never known the love that flows through Ollivander’s fingers as he crafts his wands, the love that shapes his voice even in this dark, miserable cellar.

She wishes she could do something like that.  Affect people even when she is not near them.  Leave such an impression.  Share a bit of the magic of love and creation with anyone whose life she touches.

So she asks Mr. Ollivander, and she listens, and she learns.  If she cannot do it herself, then she will learn from him.

And when he finally sighs, and is able to sleep, she sings.  She sings her Mermish lullaby to him, over and over again, because it is soothing and it calms her.  It is their situation – locked in this world of night, sleeping, ignorant to the world outside, and every time she reaches the third line, she prays silently, _Please let the world still be there when we wake up._

Because they will wake up.  Someday, sometime, they will wake up.

She has to believe it.  She has to keep hope.


	9. Chapter 9

They’ve been here for a long time.

They can’t keep time, so she doesn’t know how long it’s been exactly, but she knows it’s been a long time.  Too long.

She feels herself growing weaker every day.  She’s sure the amount of food they’re giving her has been decreasing slowly – not that it matters, because she can barely eat any of it.  She makes sure to stand up and walk around a bit every day, so she doesn’t lose all her strength, but her muscles are deteriorating.  Her ribs stick out more than anything else – her robes hang off of her in odd shapes, and there is no fat left on her body.  Even her chest is as flat as a child’s.

They don’t torture Mr. Ollivander very often anymore.  He is in even worse shape than Luna is, and they must fear that he’ll die under questioning and not be able to answer anything for them anymore.

Her voice is as weak as his was when she first came here.  Though she keeps walking, she has to keep one hand on the wall to hold her up through the now-constant vertigo.  But she doesn’t hurt anymore.  More like a dull exhaustion.

But she keeps talking to Mr. Ollivander.  She can’t sing anymore, but she plays the song for herself, inside her head, every time she lies down.  Her memories of what sunlight feels like are fading, but there is still a flame burning in her chest.  She still has hope.  It’s hard to hold on, but she promised herself long ago that she’d never let go of it.  She relies on the tiniest things to keep her going – the old, bent nail that she finds once, poking out of the wall; the little light that seeps through the crack under the door.  One night she slept at the foot of the stairs, to be as close to that light as possible.

And then, one day, everything changes.

It happens so fast, she barely notices it, but the footsteps are loud overhead, shrieking voices, cries, the door is thrown open, but it’s not Draco, and a huge, misshapen figure is forced inside – no, not one figure, many figures, chained together –

And then there’s a sound from upstairs, one that Luna’s heard far, too many times and has almost become numb to, but this voice is different, it’s feminine, and she has heard it so many times – it’s –

“HERMIONE!” screams a voice from inside the cellar, and with a tiny gasp she recognizes Ron Weasley, and if he’s here, and Hermione’s here, then _he_ must be here, too, her only hope, and she can’t let it go out, she can’t, she’ll do whatever she needs to –

“HERMIONE!”

“Be quiet!” and it’s his voice, Harry’s voice, and even though he’s here and he shouldn’t be, just hearing other people’s voices makes the flame in Luna’s heart burn a little bit brighter, “Shut up, Ron, we need to work out a way” –

But Ron’s still yelling, screaming Hermione’s name, and Luna needs to let them know that she’s here, too, so she speaks.

“Harry? Ron? Is that you?” Of course, she knows that it’s them, but she just wants to let them know that she’s here, too, and her last, futile hope that it might be someone else, might not be the only hope for humankind locked up in this dark, gloomy room –

She inches toward them, repeats their names, and Harry reacts first.

“ _Luna?_ ”

That voice – it’s definitely him, but she will not let him be captured here, whatever she needs to do to help she will gladly do, but she can’t help it that her voice sounds a little desperate when she replies.  “Yes, it’s me,” and then, louder, “Oh, no! I didn’t want you to be caught” –

And then she calms herself.  She can only help them by being strong, being the Luna Lovegood they know, even if some of that Luna Lovegood has been leached away by this cellar.  She wants to know if she can help, but before she can ask, Harry’s voice rings out, louder than she’s used to with the only voices in here being hers and frail Mr. Ollivander’s, “Luna, can you help us get these ropes off?”

_The nail._

She hopes it’ll work, but she just has a feeling – a sense that this is not the end.  “Oh, yes, I expect so,” she says, “There’s an old nail we use if we need to break anything . . . Just a moment.”  She’s exaggerating slightly, because they haven’t had use for it yet, but she doesn’t want Harry to know just how useless she’s been in here.  “Mr. Ollivander?”  He doesn’t respond, but she hears a faint stirring that must be him, and moves toward it.  He’s near the jug they left the last time with the water.  “Mr. Ollivander, have you got the nail?”  He can barely move anymore, so she softens her voice, even though she can barely be heard over Ron and Hermione’s screams.  “If you could just move over a little bit . . . I think it was beside the water jug . . .” she reaches around, gropes in the darkness, behind the jug – yes!

“You’ll need to stay still,” she whispers – she can’t raise her voice any higher, and she prays they can hear her over Hermione and Bellatrix’s cries.  And at the sound of it, a chill fills her – not a chill because it’s so horrible, but because she can’t feel it anymore.

She doesn’t want to become numb to suffering – doesn’t want these screams not to affect her anymore.  If they can inflict that on her, then they are as bad as dementors – they have taken her soul.

But she hears Hermione scream, “PLEASE!” from upstairs, feels Ron’s awful writhing, remembers Hermione at school – her passionate advocacy for equality, her intensity, devotion to a better cause, and willing to work for it – and she thinks, _This is the person they are torturing upstairs.  This is the bright flame they want to extinguish._   If they destroy Hermione, something in Harry will go out, too – and something in Luna herself.

So she whispers, “Ron, please stay still, I can’t see what I’m doing,” as she attempts to manipulate the nail, and is almost relieved when a tear slips down her cheek for Hermione – because she can feel it again.

She almost lost herself, and she never wants to have this feeling again.

“My pocket!” whispers Ron, “in my pocket there’s a Deluminator and it’s full of light!”

So she reaches around him, fits her hand into his pocket with difficulty, and pulls out a strangely-shaped object.  But she knows what the Deluminator is, and she clicks it, and _oh_ –

The light hurts so badly after weeks, or months, or years – who knows? – of darkness, but she can _see_ , and so she thanks Ron, not only for the ease at which she can now cut the ropes, but for giving her the most hope anyone has since she was taken from the Hogwarts Express.  She can see, and even though Harry and Ron with their cuts and their overlong hair and their clothes in tatters are a sorry sight, they are real.  They are here.  And there is a goblin here, as well – Luna thinks she’s seen him in Gringotts before, but she can’t be quite sure – and Dean, Ginny’s old boyfriend.  And even though their situation seems hopeless she can’t stop a wide smile from forming on her face, because they are here, and they are real.  “Hello, Dean!” she says, and she wonders if they can see that she is different, or if she is just the same Loony Lovegood that they have always known.  She’s been known to smile at strange times before – will they think she’s still crazy?

But she’s never been crazy before, and the thought that frightens her is: _Is she crazy now?_

And she hears the screaming again, and it touches her – finally, it reaches through the calluses that have somehow built up, and it pierces to her skin.  And even though it hurts, she’s almost relieved, because they _didn’t get her._

And then the bindings fall away, and it feels like it’s more than just freeing Harry – she’s also freeing herself from the metaphorical prison she’s somehow locked herself up in.  And so maybe there’s a little too much triumph in her face when she cries, “There!” but only she knows what it means, and the others will never ask, will never be surprised by anything from Loony Lovegood, and Ron runs around the cellar and Hermione is screaming upstairs, and her world should be crashing around her, but she feels stronger than she ever has before, because she somehow just knows that _they will not die tonight._

And she stops Ron from his futile attempts to escape, watches Harry pull a pouch from around his neck and scream into a mirror that he needs help, and then she hears Lucius Malfoy’s voice upstairs, “Draco, fetch the goblin,” and she waits.

And Draco’s voice comes from behind the door:  “Stand back. Line up against the back wall.  Don’t try anything, or I’ll kill you!”

And she feels another tear slip from behind her eyelid.  He won’t kill them – she doesn’t know him well, but she does know this.  They haven’t talked since Christmas, but she feels as though she’s been communicating with him every day.  She knows that he does not have the soul to kill – that his is still whole, and that he cannot destroy it.  She knows that he is not too far gone to do that, but she also knows that if she does not do what he says, he will be killed, and this she doesn’t want either – so she retreats to the wall and presses her back against it between Harry and Griphook, and Ron clicks the Deluminator and the lights flash off –

And Draco steps stiffly inside, pain and horror thick on his face, hidden under a thin layer of stubbornness, and as he grabs Griphook’s arm, Luna catches his eye, just for a moment.  And she sees the hopelessness in his eyes, cutting down to his soul, and with a shock of horror, she sees what she might have been, after a bit more time in this cellar, if Harry had not shown up when he did.

And as the door shuts behind Draco, Ron clicks the lights back on – and now there’s a house-elf, standing in the middle of the cellar.

Luna’s seen this house-elf before, she thinks, cleaning the Ravenclaw common room late at night.  She’s talked to him – his name was Dobby, wasn’t it, and he said he was a friend of Harry Potter –

Her suspicions are confirmed when Ron gets half of the name out of his mouth before Harry hits him hard to shut him up, and the way the Dobby addresses Harry.  But he is terrified, his voice even quieter than Luna’s, as he manages, “Harry Potter, Dobby has come to rescue you.”

And Hermione shrieks, and Luna listens as Harry and Ron prepare Dobby, but then she listens in horror as he says that she and Dean are to go, as well.  And when the tiny house-elf extends his hand to her, she doesn’t take it.

“Harry,” she whispers, and her heart is singing at the thought of an escape, but she is Luna Lovegood and she will not leave without her friends – her _friends_ – and so she murmurs, “We want to help you!”

“We can’t leave you here,” adds Dean, arms crossed over his chest.

“Go, both of you,” Harry beseeches.  “We’ll see you at Bill and Fleur’s” – and then his hand flies to his scar, just for a moment, and sways, but as another scream issues from above, he seems to snap back to himself.  “Go!” he pleads.  “Go! We’ll follow, just go!”

She locks eyes with Dean, and they come to an unspoken agreement – _as long as you follow_ – and they reach out at the same time to take Dobby’s little hand, and the last thing she hears is another long, piercing scream before the elf turns on the spot and she is lost in darkness.


	10. Epilogue

As soon as she heard the news about Luna, a knot that had been in Ginny’s neck since December seemed to loosen.

It was different from Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  They had a radio program dedicated to them, and they’d known that they were heading into severe danger.  Besides, if they were killed, it would be publicized.  So, as long as she heard nothing about them, she could be relieved.  (Of course, there’d been the moment of terror last night when Bill showed up with no explanation except that the Death Eaters knew about Ron and told them to get out, get out _now_ )  But knowing for sure they were safe wasn’t as much as a relief as it was knowing about Luna.

Because Luna was a nobody.  She was only a prisoner because of her father, and if they hurt her or killed her, it wouldn’t be publicized.  Somehow she’d lost her coin, and she hadn’t gotten a message to them.

They’d been completely in the dark, not knowing if she was alive or – Ginny shuddered, but forced herself to think the word – dead.

But Bill told them who all was at Shell Cottage – Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dean, Ollivander, and Luna.

Luna was alive.

And Dean, too – this would be such a relief for Seamus.

So, as soon as Bill had left again, Ginny ran upstairs and searched for her coin.  After weeks in the library, Luna and a few other Ravenclaws had managed to figure out how to send worded messages with it.  On the bottom of the coin, around the rim, the words ONE GALLEON were spelled out, and they could change those letters to send messages.

It was a bit tricky, because they only had ten characters, but it was better than nothing.

So, carefully, painstakingly, Ginny tapped her wand to each of the letters, changing them to NEW SFROMGW.

They’d agreed on using initials to shorten the messages when necessary, and now everyone would get the message and be ready for more.

Soon, her coin heated up. FIL LUSINNL.

Fill us in – Neville Longbottom.

LUN ADEANOK.

Hopefully they’d understand, “Luna and Dean are okay.”  The ten-character thing was definitely difficult, but there was no other way to make sure that no one noticed.  After all, who reads Galleons?

Two seconds later, she received: THA NKGODNL.  And, before she could even start composing her reply, the coin heated up again.  REL IEVEDSF.

Of course Seamus would be relieved to hear about his best friend.  And soon, her coin was flashing message after message as more and more of the DA heard her news.  She smiled.  They had all been just as worried as she had.

Finally, the flood of messages slowed, and she was able to send her own: HPR WHGALSO.  If those initials weren’t obvious, she didn’t know what was.

That one got even more responses – mostly along the lines of WHE RERTHEY.  Where are they?

She couldn’t answer that one, though, so she replied only with, NOM OREINFO.

BUT THEYROK.

There was no question mark there, but she recognized the unspoken question, and answered with: FAR ASIKNOW.

It was disappointing not to know any more, but at least they were all right.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione were safe – for the time being.  And Luna – Luna was alive.

STA YSAFENL.

It was the common sign-off phrase.  Stay safe.

So Ginny closed her eyes, and sent a silent message to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dean, and Luna.

_Stay safe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of a two-part story. Please don't judge my teenage self's writing (I promise I'm better now), and I hope you've found something of worth in Luna's story, old as it is.


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